


see how deep the bullet lies

by roundabout



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Ending, Flash Fic, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 16:37:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17124923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundabout/pseuds/roundabout
Summary: "You took Ezor from me." Zethrid’s voice filters through the high pitched ringing in Keith’s ears. Her hoarse voice is hollow and tinny, distant across a faltering connection. "You took awayeverything. And now, you’ll understand."Or, Ezor never made it off her warship, and what goes around comes around.





	see how deep the bullet lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sequence_fairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/gifts).



> “It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”  
> ― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

The arm around his neck is an iron band, pinning Keith tight to the armor clad barrel of Zethrid’s chest. Each plate is hard and unyielding, and digs painfully into the tender, exposed line of his back. Zethrid is trembling, a fine shiver against Keith's squared shoulders. Her growl is constant, feral, and separate from the harsh in-and-out of her breath. It raises the short hairs at the back of his neck.

A trickle of sweat drips down Keith's temple. His head swims; the low oxygen level and the toxic atmosphere burning the edges of his vision dark. He blinks, losing time, and figures appear in the middle distance. Acxa is straight backed and pinched; Shiro's armor is a light smear against a sea of red.

Zethrid’s arm tightens like a vice, muscles flexing and bunching, until each sharp breath Keith sucks back is short, hitching, and burns the line of his throat. Blood pounds like a drum in his ears, drowning the world in the two-step of his pulse. Words fall from Zethrid’s mouth, rolling off her tongue like thunder, but Keith's can't quite catch them as they slip over his head. She snarls, mouth curling to expose all her teeth, and jerks him back by the throat. He scrambles, kicking back at her legs, fails to land a blow to her shins. His thin insoles drag against the pebbled rocks and volcanic ash lining the ledge, and kick up dark dust. His hair hangs lank in his eyes, sticking uncomfortably to his sweat-damp cheeks and forehead.

His fingers wrap around her forearm, grip shameful and kitten-weak, as the air in his lungs runs out. His nail beds itch as panic begins to set in. The tips of his fingers feel slippery, slick with fresh blood as his nails loosen and peel off, fresh keratin grows in and lengthen, thicken without conscious thought. The new nails are sharp, and deadly. They scrabble along her piecemeal gauntlet to pry at the cracks, scraping little white lines against the foreign metal. He digs in, tugs, and feels fabric fray under his hands. 

It’s useless, a wasted effort. Keith is stuck fast, squirming against her front. He can’t dislodge her, can’t move her with the force of his dwindling strength. He tries slumping back into her, hoping his dead weight will knock her off balance, but Zethrid clutches him tighter and takes his weight like that of a child. Her body shakes against his, but her weapon arm stays steady, fixed on a distant point.

Stars bleed from the sky and swing across his vision. They leave little chemtrails of light in their wake that shift and spin when Keith blinks. Acxa, he realizes belatedly, is talking, pleading, as if attempting to appease a wounded animal. Her mouth is moving too slow, too fast, cadence never quite coming close enough to match and sooth the festering wound of Zethrid’s anger. Acxa’s hands are held out in supplication that does nothing to assuage the grief and rage the spills from Zethrid in waves, slicking everything like burning oil over water.

There is a lull in conversation as each side seemingly runs out of things to say — a quiet moment where the only sounds are Keith’s aborted little gasps for breath and the way his thick tongue fumbles on the vowels and consonants of a name that won’t come. Zethrid’s arm dips, just a hair, and Acxa’s expression softens by degrees. Shiro steps forward, just one step, hands raising, palms up and fingers spread. His mouth opens behind his visor as if to speak —

The bark of the blaster rips through the air, piercing Keith's eardrum like a crudely driven nail. He flinches as the recoil of the gun snaps Zethrid’s arm back and the kick rolls through their bodies in tandem, as if they'd pulled the trigger together.

Across the narrow divide, Shiro's helmet explodes.

Keith's ears ring in the aftermath. Zethrid’s arm slackens, and he chokes on a rough, wet gasp.

"You took Ezor from me." Zethrid’s voice filters through the high pitched ringing in Keith’s ears. Her hoarse voice is hollow and tinny, distant across a faltering connection. "You took away  _ everything _ . And now, you’ll understand."

A fine mist of red paints the rock wall at Shiro's back, punctuated with rough, wet chunks of grey meat and white bone and yellow fragmented glass. His knees crumple, and he slumps to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. He lands in an awkward heap, arms and legs akimbo. There is a void where his helmet was. There is a void where his face should be.

Time hangs. All the gears and clockwork pieces of the universe grind to a halt. Rich ruby red spills from the jagged wet hole where Shiro's neck used to be, sinking into the parched ground, turning the dusty earth to mud.

There is nothing where Shiro's face should be.

The sharp whine of a long-range blaster slices the air, half a second too late. Zethrid’s entire body jerks, arm falling free from Keith’s neck, as the air is punched from her lungs. Her massive hand catches at his throat as she overbalances, lurching drunkenly toward the cliffs edge on unsteady feet. Something hot and thick drips down Keith’s collar, collecting and clotting in his hair. 

Something dark and oily and ugly squirms in the hidden corners of Keith's heart. It writhes, a living thing waking from decades-long slumber, and spills ice water and electricity into Keith's veins.

Blood pulses weakly from Shiro's jagged, stump neck. The white of exposed bone stares Keith down like an accusing eye. Fragments of jaw and teeth peek through the mud like lost jewels. Zethrid sways, barely catching her balance before dragging them both into the slowly churning lava below. Her breath bubbles as she exhales, aspirating blood. She slumps against Keith’s back, a solid, unwanted mass, as if she has lost the ability to hold herself steady. Fresh blood dribbles down her chin, smearing along the side of Keith’s face as she turns her head and smiles;  a mockery of a lover’s embrace.

Her sharp fangs dig into the tight, gnarled skin spanning the line of his cheek. The dark thing pulses, crackles, drips venom all throughout his guts. Keith’s fingers flex on nothing, numb at the knuckle and burning with sparks that arc between each fingertip. His hair crackles with static as his world tilts. Zethrid’s grip on his throat weakens once more as the full brunt of her weight falls on Keith, content rest there and rale weakly. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. 

The world stutter-steps back into movement, half speed and bleeding cold blue. Noise filters back in, voices loud and shrill and overlapping, bleeding together into a cacophony of sound. The air is thick and wet with copper. The dark thing spreads tendrils out through all Keith's insides, reaches cold fingers up Keith's throat, buzzing on his tongue.

There is nothing but void where Shiro's head once was. Brain matter slip-slides down the face of the wall. The gush of blood has slowed to a steady leak,  _ drip-drip-dripping _ on the ground. Keith's body thrums electric, bursting at the seams.

His jaw unhinges, dark energy a palpable thing between his teeth, and Keith screams.

**Author's Note:**

> You know that John Mulaney skit, where he's like, _I hear you honking, and I also don’t want me to be doing what I’m doing_? Because honestly, I feel that. But I had a really shitty, terrible, no good, very bad day, so this gets Posted instead of living on a blog somewhere, and the first thing I post publicly for years is one of my fave's head exploding. Funny how the world works.
> 
> Come yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/aroundab00t), or [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/roundabout), since my tumblr doesn't exist anymore.


End file.
